D and I traveled to Nashville, Indiana this past weekend to catch a talk by Coach Bob Knight. The venue was a low key place, a 2000 seat auditorium, which usually hosts touring country acts. We had great seats – sixth row, center.
Before Bob came out, a projector replayed footage from the ceremony celebrating his 880th win back in 2007 (which made him the men’s div 1 college basketball wins leader). Then, after the seats filled up, Bob came out to a standing ovation – the Hoosier force is still strong in this one. After the applause quieted, Bob started, in typical point blank fashion, with some ribbing of the event organizers (long time friends of his) about the modest on-stage setup.
Bob went on to talk for over two hours. He retold stories dating back to his coaching start at West Point through to his recent work for ESPN. His first story was a 15 minute monologue about how upon arriving at Texas Tech he quickly learned of the expression, Son’bitch. One of my favorite lines was in this story in which he said “I don’t know much about computers. All I know is they weigh a hell of a lot when my wife puts one in our carry on.”
He spoke a lot about fellow coaches and past players. Although his tales twisted and turned with lots of tangents, his recall of names and scores was uncanny. Bob talked about coaching Mike Krzyzewski at West Point and how he instructed him to never shoot the ball (“if you shoot, you will die”), an order which the young Coach K followed. He talked about the satisfaction of beating Digger Phelps (94-29) who was in his first year coaching at Notre Dame while Bob was in his first year at Indiana. A lot of stories centered around the IU team who won his first National Championship in ’76, including one player he called his all-time MVP: Bobby Wilkerson. Although Wilkerson wasn’t as popular as Kent Benson, Scott May, or Quinn Buckner, Knight told of his dedication and versatility on the court.
At one point in the middle of the talk Bob’s cell phone began to ring. Bob stopped and answered it right on stage. He went on to talk to an unknown person at the other end for several minutes about the merits of hiring Dan Hipsher. After the call, Bob said we might’ve just seen a preview to a big announcement in the coming days.
Bob took a few passing digs at the IU administration that ended his tenure (nothing too pointed and names weren’t mentioned) including this one during his closing remarks:
After the main portion of the talk, Knight introduced long time friend and biographer Bob Hammel. Hammel, mic in hand, went into the audience and relayed questions from the crowd to Knight for a good 15 minutes. At one point, Knight invited his wife Karen on stage and she tearfully spoke about how she misses living in the area.
After all that, there was a short break and a Meet and Greet started up a few minutes later. D and I decided to pony up a few extra bucks for a couple signed souvies and a brief 1 on 1 (meeting, not game). During our handshake and photo op, Knight took the time to sign D’s plank from Assembly Hall and it’s since become even more cherished.
